Lives and Loves
by Darkwood
Summary: Relena sees a psychiatrist to deal with her husband problems. (1x2 ; Relena+1); Hilde tries to help Duo get over Heero (2+HS)
1. rest stop

7

rest stop

by Darkwood

selections from Robert Reeves, anger management specialist's log  
flashbacks in the collective lives of Relena, Duo, and Heero  
  


[Two figures illuminated only by the dashboard lights sat in a car. One person had her hands glued to the steering wheel, the other was reclining with his eyes closed and his features set expressionless even in his sleep.

"Heero?" she purred softly at her husband tenderly. He ignored her, unconsciously, brow furrowing. "Heero," she called a little louder.

"Hn, shut up, _baka_," he responded in the tone reserved for only one idiot. "I'm _tired_, I say, let me sleep already."]

**Just three miles from the rest stop  
  
******

"I mean, I try to be a reasonable person, doctor. Is it so much to ask that my husband murmurs **_my_** name in his sleep?"

"Now, now," the doctor says, understanding her valid point but not her foundation. "Please explain exactly what you meant by 'baka.'"

"It's Japanese for a lot of things, Doctor, but mostly, when he uses it he means 'idiot.' And he's only used it in that tone of voice with one person. He certainly never sounds caring or tender about me."

**And she slams on the breaks  
  
******

[He slid forward in his seat some and his eyes flew open swiftly, taking in the scene around him. He bit his tongue inside his mouth and looked stubbornly out the window.

"Heero," she began for the third time, but this time he purposefully ignores her, not offering even a grunt in response. "Talk to me, honey."]

She said I tried to be but I'm not 

"I can't be like that, Doctor. I'm a patient woman, all of the people I know can attest to that, but this obsession he has with that… that… unhealthy young man."

"What do you mean when you say 'unhealthy?' You've never even described this 'young man' your husband is supposedly seeing."

"Don't talk to me like I am a crazy person. My husband's lover does exist, and if he doesn't now then he did during the war."

"What about the war?"

"Well you know that my husband was a Gundam pilot, Doctor Reeves, and unless you were held in a shelter for the two years we were being torn apart by the battles, you should know that there are five of these Gundam pilots. Well my husband, during the war he chose to associate himself in an intimate manner with another one of those pilots. The pilot of the Deathscythe, Duo Maxwell."

"I sense that you feel threatened by this Maxwell person, Miss Yuy, please continue."

"Duo… he and my husband were… well, they were lovers, only more seriously than they were after the fighting was over. There was some kind of falling out between them just after the war, and he, Duo, didn't come back for some reason or another.

"During this time I spent a lot of time with my current husband. For a long time he didn't acknowledge my presence or would thrust a gun at me anytime I spoke.Especially when I spoke of Duo. The two of us, Duo and I, we never got along. We were both after the same man, so to speak, and saw each other as bad elements around him.

"He fell apart when he got the telegram."

"What telegram?"

"It was, of course, from Duo. It read, and I remember most of it to this day, because I snatched it from Heero's trembling hands and then threw it back at him before he got the chance to fire his gun. It was one of those 'Dear John,' letters. And, at that time, I thought it a meaningful display of his surrendering Heero to me. I also thought it meant little.

[Heero,

I never thought I'd have to say this to you, but we're over. I can't let myself love you right now, for all I know, anymore. Too much has happened and I don't even know who I am anymore. It's… it's something I have to do for myself, and I'm going to get really dirty for a while. I don't want to hurt you any more than I have to by subjecting you to all of what I'll be doing to my soul, and you can't help me at all this time. I want you to be happy in life, and I can't give you that now. The war is over, and except for petty skirmishes we aren't need how we were made. That says something to me. Something more than you do.

Shinigami Eternal

Duo Maxwell]

"Heero didn't eat or speak or sleep for a solid month. I know now that he felt that he had failed his mission. He felt he'd failed Duo. Then he slowly wandered out of his room and when I was leaving, he just followed me."

"You based a marriage on this?"

"You don't understand, Doctor, I was so obsessed with him that I truly believed, at that time, that I was in love with my husband. No, please don't laugh. I found out later that I didn't."

"He proposed, we were married within the month as he regained his normal… or at least what I was blind enough to believe was his normal, self.

"Sorry to interrupt again, Misses Yuy, but you said that 'back then' you didn't believe it meant anything to your husband. How do you know differently?"

Slowly her well-manicured hands tighten on the bag in her lap and she sits in silence for a moment, finally cutting off the doctor's apology by saying, "He still has it. It's old and worn from being opened and closed from someplace he keeps it, and he read it for a long time." Her throat closes and she says quietly, "May I-"

"Yes, please go on."

"He was obsessively devoted to me during the first two months. Anything I wanted, I had, anything I felt like doing, we did." The doctor blushes. "Please don't think ill of me, Doctor Reeves, I grew up the privileged daughter of a wealthy man, and then became a princess. I had never known want or need. I felt it natural that I got my way with whatever I wanted and needed.

"It was only a matter of time before I got him. I never expected I'd loose him more easily."

"Lost him?"

"A year passed and he was no longer interested in me. I had burnt up his care of me, and it was over romantically. He still catered to me, but in a different way. My husband was always devoted to his missions, his duties, and I was just that, his duty.

"Duo turned up again, did he ever. Quatre called late one night, and Heero left the room to get the phone. I slept for almost ten minutes thinking he'd gone for a snack, and then I heard a shout in the hall and hurried out to look and see what had happened.

"Quatre, on the other end of the phone, was calling 'Heero, Heero!' frantically, and my husband was looking crazed, and then he turned and shoved his fist into the wall above the phone table. His eyes were so wild and full of some sort of emotion that I couldn't recognize, and he didn't notice the pain. There was blood on the dust crowding the air. I could taste it.

"I was shocked, and so were the other people in the hall, a few visiting dignitaries and the servants from that floor were all crowded into the hallway. I smiled politely and walked past him to calm them, he yanked his hand out of the wall after I passed him and went into our room.

"I was just ready to ask him more questions when Quatre shouted for me, and so I lifted the phone. _Quatre?_ I asked.

_'Oh, Miss Relena, I'm so glad you picked up the phone. What happened to Heero?'_

_'What did you say to him to make him shove his fist through the plaster, Quatre!' I demanded._

"He had no response for me other than a weak apology for my husband's actions. I hurried to the room only to be shoved out of the way roughly as he left the room and headed down the hall to the fitness rooms."

"What did he do?"

"He worked out. Four in the morning, he gets a call, puts a fist through the wall, and goes to work out."

"Oh yes, now I remember, you first called me that next day."

"Yes. Well needless to say I was curious. I didn't find out until after Wufei arrived at my place with a duffle bag and a brusque hello. He headed straight for where Heero was. It was uncanny. I hadn't even known where to look for him, but he got there, and when he saw I'd followed, he closed the door, and locked it, in my face.

"They cut the security camera together and began to talk heatedly. I watched for a long minute, suddenly being hit by the reality of the situation. Something was wrong, and Heero wasn't worried about me.

"After that I fearfully went downstairs, three levels since he refused to eat in the bedroom or near it, and had breakfast. Pagan brought me the paper, and I was shocked. The headline baffled me, '_Gundam Pilot Brutally Attacked at L2 Home.'_ I was naturally upset that someone had been injured during this time of peace, but I didn't understand what would get the three still-surfaced pilots so riled up. So I continued reading and ignored this little twinge of a memory at the thought of L2 colony. I suppose that if I hadn't I'd still be a happily, and obliviously so, married woman."

  
[She continued to drive, but when she got no response she let go of the wheel and allowed the car swerve.

"What the hell!" Heero snapped, temper getting the best of him for once. He grabbed the wheel and began to pull over to the side right under a blue information sign.

"Why are you still talking about _him_? Why! I can make you happy!"

A dark look passed across his face and he turned back to the window again, yanking her foot from the pedal by the ankle and ripping the keys out of the ignition. She threw her arms around his neck.

"Get off me," he snapped.]

And could you please collect your things 

"What happened?" The doctor asks, trying to remain only politely intrigued. "You found out, didn't you?"

"It was Duo. He hadn't informed either Wufei or Quatre where he was going, and of course not Heero. Hilde was mentioned in the article. She was with him at the time, and he had protected her with horrific results. She had escaped with only a minor slice to her cheek, but he had been stabbed twice and shot before he collapsed and the police arrived to stop the then-vanished assailants.

"Quatre had found the article and flown to L2 just after calling us, and we received word that they were going to move Duo to the earth since he would need the support of fresh air after having his left lung punctured. I agreed. I was very naïve. I didn't understand what all of it meant, but that a savior had been hurt and I would loose face by denying him."

"Why was your husband exercising? What did Wufei come to the room and what were they talking about?"

"Heero, like I said, hadn't eaten that month before we married, and he just didn't bother getting back to his previous strength because he still had his precision and wouldn't need his strength ever again.

"I suppose he didn't want Duo to see him weak. Duo felt the same way because he told Quatre, before he slipped into the coma, that he didn't want Heero in to see him. He didn't even want to be taken to the earth, but Quatre pulled some trick with the physicians."

"Why not? They were friends at least, weren't they?" Reeves asks. "Shouldn't he want the support of his friends?"

"Duo is ever an abstinent fool when it comes to my husband. He didn't want to ruin his happiness, I found out from Quatre. He hadn't wanted to come to the earth for fear he'd ruin Heero's life. Didn't matter if he ruined mine. Or if he died for being stupid like that."

"He hated you. You hated him. You have to understand that the seeds of hate set deeply. Especially if Mr. Maxwell found out the two of you were together. He would have felt betrayed by you for taking what he felt was his, no matter that he left Mr. Yuy, he would still have felt that way."

"I think I can understand. It's the same way that I felt first when I accidentally… walked in on them during the war."

"My that must have been embarrassing."

"It was one of the most shocking and traumatizing experiences of my life. I only got over it blaming Maxwell for seducing him." The doctor stifles a chuckle.

[The door was shyly pressed open and a honey-blond haired young woman steps in, adjusting her sundress with her white gloves carefully before looking up to inspect the creaking noises coming from bouncing springs and the panting noises and moans.

"Nnn… harder!" Duo shouted.

"I-I'm… oh… trying!"

"God, I'm… I- Hee-!"

"HEERO!" She bellowed.

The two young men on the bed, or rather the one only beginning to fall into the throws of his orgasm turned to look at the prim and proper dressed young woman before he rolled his eyes and a moan surged from his throat as inner muscles clamped down on his member.

For a time afterwards there was only a frantic scramble for a sheet to cover them with on Duo's part and sweaty panting from both of them. As Duo collapsed, blushing brightly, forward on to the pillows, spent, Heero angrily yanked the sheet Duo had covered them with around his waist and tried to get out of the bed without showing himself off to the princess while getting his gun and ended up on the floor.

"Heero…" she stuttered.

Being uncovered, Duo yanked the blanket from the bottom of the bed and covered himself up to his chin, averting his eyes from hers as she glared at him.

His counterpart, however, managed to get up off the floor and points the gun at her angrily. "Of all the lousy times to show up," Duo panted from behind him as Relena found herself backed up to the door by the muzzle of a Colt .22, the braided boy suddenly stared at his partner's falling sheet and pulled the blanket up over his head.

"GET OUT!" Heero shouted, shoving the gun forward before his body, not even bothering with the sheet anymore, just advancing quickly and angrily at her, clicking off the safety.

Peeking out from his hiding spot, Duo slowly slinked out from under the cover, dog crawling towards his lover with the ends of the sheet as her suddenly dumbstruck hands fumbled with the doorknob.]

[The windows in the parked car began steaming up to show mere shadows to the passing cars of two silhouettes inside, motionless.

"If you're that wrapped up in him, why don't you leave, Heero?" She purred, "It would be better for both of us."

"Have you no sense at all!" he snapped agitatedly.

"What are you talking about?" she shouted back. "I'm trying to find a peaceful solution here!"

"Pardon my unsympathetic condescending tone for your naiveté, _darling_, but do you know what will happen if I just take off and someone finds me with a man! You'll be taken down without a second thought: 'she failed her husband, what about us,' or 'how could she have let it happen that way?' You can't fix this. Just don't try, ok!"

Slowly she turned back to the front of the car, realizing the perils of the situation, and tears began to flow down her cheeks. He grunted under his breath and opened his window to let cool air in to let the color from her cheeks.]

  
**I don't wanna be cold**

"What happened after that? When Mr. Maxwell wouldn't let Mr. Yuy see him?" the doctor asks.

"He started breaking down again. The next day Quatre called the house to say that Duo had slipped into a coma and that I should come collect Heero or at least help him since he was breaking down.

"I did, thinking I could save him from his fate brought on him by Maxwell the Demon. I really thought he was evil. Sometimes I still do, he stole my entire life, ruined me.

"Heero was on his knees in the waiting room when I got there, his chin was resting on his chest and he wasn't moving. Trowa was there. I was furious that Quatre hadn't stayed himself since Heero was breaking down, but Quatre, I was told by a helpful nurse, was in a separate room recovering from emotional shock.

"Trowa tried to explain something to me, but I just didn't hear him. I only knew that my 'baby' was suffering, and so I tried to talk to him. For my tender efforts I received a shove that pushed me into the row of plastic metal seats so hard I bruised for days and had to wear knee-length skirts for a couple weeks.

"I tried once more. I was going to go in and get all of this business straightened out. I was going to see Duo and prove everyone wrong by exposing his lie. Of course I thought he was faking just to get Heero's attention.

"The only other time I'd seen that expression on my husband's handsome features was when I'd walked in on the two of them, and then the gun had scared me, not him. This time I couldn't swallow or move simply from the expression he was directing at me."

[The window down, Heero leaned out and takes a few deep breaths himself, calming his frazzled and Duo-deprived nerves.

"Look, Relena, I'm sorry for shouting like that, and blowing up about what you said it's just… you try to hard."

"How should I act then? You're leaving me for _him_! The only person I ever hated or was jealous of! You're trying to hurt me, aren't you?"

He sighed in defeat and his head droops down to the edge of the door, eyes searching out the dark horizon. "I never wanted it this way."]

  
**I don't wanna be cruel**

"Well obviously Heero didn't want me to go into the room, whether it was because he couldn't go in, or be there to watch my actions or just that he didn't want the two of us mixed up together even by proximity, I will never know."

"What happened?"

"Duo stayed in that coma for months. It didn't seem he would ever wake up, and they asked Quatre what to do. His hands were tied, he said. He didn't have the final decision."

But I gotta find more  
Than what's happening with you  
  


[The doctors grouped around the young men looked at the pilot's benefactor in shock. The other three pilots stared as well.

Heero began to crack, "What do you mean you can't do anything?" he snapped.

Quatre held up a hand with a small vid-disk in it. "I can't do anything, Heero. I wasn't the one he gave his last rights to. He gave them to you." The pale hand took Heero's larger one and placed the frail plastic in it, "I was also given instructions that if something… anything were to happen… you were supposed to get this when I told you."

Shocked to silence, everyone looked at Quatre, who didn't even attempt to hold back his tears. He turned away from Heero, who stares blindly at the disk. "Duo…" Heero whispered quietly.

Relena made a move to stand but Wufei turned and stared her down and Heero stepped over to put his arms around Quatre gently. "I'm sorry it wasn't you."

"I just… can't see him like this anymore, Heero," the Arab put his face on the Japanese boy's shoulder, "it hurts horribly. Do something for him. Wake him up or let him die in peace, but he's just being tormented now. I know. He's stuck in limbo."

Heero squeezed once and Quatre points towards a room marked 'family council' before turning blindly into Trowa's embrace and letting the tears escape his eyes.

About twenty minutes of held breath later, he emerged, stopping to thank Wufei and Trowa for their support during the troubled time, and then he aimed himself at the door to the room, Quatre stopping him briefly.

"It's all right, he's going to come back to us, whether his body thinks so or not," he said in a determined voice before leaving the shocked semi-personal waiting room and disappearing into the antiseptic room, closing the door firmly behind him.]

If you'd - open up the door  
  


"What happened?"

"I'm not sure, but whatever it was, it worked. Heero came out looking as worn as Quatre, and as his door closed a noise alerted one of the nurses and she went to check Duo's room. His heart was beating by itself again, and was climbing, very slowly, to normal. Or at least, Duo's normal."

"It took a long time?"

"Yes. Six months before he could breathe on his own."

"Please continue."

"I had to leave the country and my husband with his former lover on a gurney for the next four days, an ambassadorial trip to Geneva to meet with the newest delegates from the colonies. It turned out that the situation I was handling required more time than anyone suspected when the ambassadors were first detained for a week and then had lost their luggage and… it was the biggest non-violent political mess since the Eve Wars.

"It took three months to complete the engagement and then I was backed up on everything else and had to run around. In a very large way I welcomed the distraction. I welcomed it with open arms. After seeing the four pilots idling in a hospital over a comrade I began to feel uselessness setting in to my mind as well. I could almost touch Quatre's desperation. He's always been the most emotional, in a good way, of the five, and his distress projected to the staff so much that they allowed him in any time he felt it necessary.

"Four months later I was delivered to the doorstep of the Peacecraft mansion and slept for almost two days straight. I woke up and found an empty bedroom and then remembered I was married."

'I don't think she minds as much as she thinks she does,' the doctor notes on his small pad.

"I was dressing in a rush when Pagan brought up an envelope. I opened it to find Heero's angry scrawl. It said:

_Sign this. Sign it 'Peacecraft,' just to make him feel better. If you don't I'll forge your signature._

"That was all except for this colorful and thoughtful card with plenty of space to write in. I was the first to sign. I was touched, but then I figured out a couple reasons why. One - if I didn't sign it right Heero could just buy another one and sign it himself so the others wouldn't have to copy theirs over. Two – he wanted to check up on what and how much I wrote. I was, needless to say, quite angry with him. I was also angry with myself for what I wanted to write to him. The look in Wufei's eyes that day told me all I needed to know about the authenticity of Duo's illness.

"It had also come to my attention that it would be stupid for him to do that when he could've done so many other things that would've made a better impact, and he wouldn't have named Heero as his next of kin if he wanted attention. He was too serious about death for that."

"Serious? You always portrayed Mr. Maxwell as a scheming, jovial prankster. Sometimes vengeful but always smiling and joking."

"That's just it, he was!" she snaps uncontrollably, "but he was quite serious about his job."

"Job? I thought he worked for a salvage yard."

"During the war he was the pilot of 'Deathscythe' whom he liked to call 'Shinigami.'"

"Again the Japanese lingual reference eludes me. Please specify."

"The God of Death. Shinigami is the God of Death in Japanese. I used to use it like a curse word when I was mad, but it only ever made him smile and say something like 'You know it, ojou-san.' Or something else that was stupid and playful. Almost like he was flirting.

"I must admit that I haven't met or known anyone to dislike him."

"Ah?" the doctor looks at her pointedly.

"I hated him for his attachment to Heero, but as a person he was charismatic and I still liked him. After all, I didn't have to fight him in a mobile suit. That had its pluses for what scant non-cat fighting relationship we had."

He notes this, 'Perhaps this is why the husband so vehemently kept her out of the hospital room. Pity and sympathy emit strong emotions in human beings.'

"So, being the self-proclaimed God of Death, and I believe a devout, though I could be wrong, Catholic, life and death would mean a lot to him. Perhaps that would explain his preoccupation with Heero having a happy life. Not that it was possible."

'Are you taking the blame for this?'

"He used to wear a black priest-like outfit, and a cross around his neck, but who knows? He also had about a yard of hair tied in a braid. Never did figure him out.

  
  
**She said - while you were sleeping   
  
******

[The dimly lit waiting room held four people, the three men looking rather worn and the woman looking anxious and outwardly caring. The blond haired man sank to the couch wearily, dark bags under his eyes and a light growth of stubble on his cheeks. He slumped forward and rests his forehead on his kneecaps.

"Quatre, you should rest," she said, "where are you guys staying?"

"We're not, and Quatre just slept for eight hours," Trowa replied, walking over to the young man and putting a hand on his shoulder caringly.

"Has anyone slept since I left?"

"We've been taking turns in the room over there. One of the nurses pushed Quatre and me in when he tripped and fell into me and we both took a tumble onto the floor. Heero's next."

"No, he just started in there an hour ago, he'll be in there for a long time yet, even if he falls asleep with his head on the railing. Wufei should sleep."

The Chinese man, however, continued to stare out at the brightening morning sky. Having had enough of watching the three wilting men do nothing, Relena stood and stomped her foot angrily.

Six eyes turned to lock on her.

"I realize how the four of you feel about Duo. Perhaps not as much as I should, or even as much as I could understand, but I have seen my share of loss as well. I can sympathize with your loss, but you can't let it eat you away! If you keep this up Duo will be better off than all of you when he wakes up. I am taking you all to my house to sleep some. And since I know no one wants me in there, Quatre will you tell Heero where we're going?"

Wufei snorted, but Trowa shook his head and prodded Quatre to his feet. Dutifully he went, and returned, nodding something about six hours, and Trowa swept him up into weak arms and followed to the elevator as Wufei left the number with the desk and went after at the prodding of the secretary.]

[Slowly his hand moved and pressed a button on the radio, giving it power and letting the radio waves exit through the speakers.

A woman's voice drifted out, "_End of the third round…"_ Relena closed her eyes tighter and felt the heat fade away as she tilts her head back and falls off to sleep._ "I'm pushing zero/where is my hero…"_]

**I was listening to the radio**

**And wondering what you're dreaming when  
  
**

[Heero looked over at her, noting her relaxed posture and tear striped face. "_And my world falls down/and you're there calling out… It's a game that I can't play, not today…"_

Making up his mind, he checked the papers of the current car, and nodded. He looked into the back of the car trying to make his final decision. Choosing whether or not to desert his feeble hopes of salvaging the public's respect of her while realizing his own lack of it, he opened the car door.]

"I convinced them to stay the time sleeping at the house. In a manner I fed them, bathed them, and held their hopes while they cared for the life of their fallen comrade. I still didn't see Heero though. I was never let into the hospital room.

"I saw him in passing once, I had ridden with Pagan to drop Wufei off and he forgot the cookies that Mrs. Madison made for them, so I carried them up and he passed me in the hallway. He was a ghost. He hadn't shaved, obviously, in days, and it didn't look like he had slept well, but he was back to his 'old' self again. Five foot three inches tall and slender with muscles so subtle that even I no longer noticed them, but…"

"But what, Misses Yuy?"

"He had an exhausted look in his eyes. I had tried so hard to keep from dragging him home with me as well, I didn't want to force him back into my life as I had before. I tried not to stop, call his name, and face the rejection. But I wasn't strong enough, and I was still obsessively in love with him. It was like we were back to square one again and I wanted all of my questions answered."

**It came to mind that I didn't care  
  
******

[The dim yet sickly yellow of the fluorescent lighting of the hallway did nothing to help the view she was faced with of her formerly healthy husband. He was pale with the sick greenish tint of someone who had gone without sleep for days, only normally it was transfixed to a teenager or a college student studying hard for a final or term paper.

The comparative case should have set off the alarms and bells in her head, but did not. She saw in his tired face the handsome and beguiling man he had been only months prior, and her vision left out all the current bad parts. She felt her heart twist at the sorrow in his eyes, the first actual emotion she had seen in them other than anguish and guilty grief. She couldn't hold herself in check any longer, not about her husband.

"Heero!" she cried happily, throwing herself at him, the cookie tin falling to the ground in her wake making a metallic clang as she hugged him tightly and he did not respond.] 

"What after he pushed you away?"

"Quatre came in the hall and I was still wrapped around his neck while he didn't even move except to pick up and inspect the tin. Quatre took it and headed down the hall. 'Go,' he told me, and eager to obey him again, I did, feeling uplifted and happy that I had helped them all. That gut-wrenching feeling kept gnawing at the inside of my stomach, and I thought I had an ulcer so I saw a doctor in that same hospital. By that time they had borrowed a car from the garage and were driving themselves back and forth. Wufei left behind me towards the house as Pagan drove me off. Even he was stressed about the situation.

"I got home late, and no one was around except for the servants, and they were doing their normal duties. Pagan retired to his quarters and I looked for one of the other pilots. No one was home so I ate a light dinner and went to bed.

"For another three days no one showed up, and I, still on my high about the cookies, the hug, and the fact that they _had_ taken me up on the offer of real beds, didn't bother, figuring that even Quatre had to be recuperated after a month of reliable sleep. If only I'd known.

"He and Trowa were passing the time exploring each other. The two of them explored their feelings and that eerie talent that Quatre always had, over meals. They did almost everything together, and I just didn't notice. Wufei, meanwhile, had taken up drinking during the third month and half of the time it was Heero who dragged him home and shoulder flipped him onto the bed before yanking covers over his ankles and requesting a vegetable shake for him in the morning.

"A month passed that way, and I didn't notice, I was still throwing myself into my work with abandon. On the fourth day without any of them, however, I called the hospital. Duo had started breathing on his own. His heart had finally strengthened enough to support his respiration and he was off almost all of his machines. His lungs were very close to being healed, and he was just returning from the OR when I made my way up to the waiting room to find them all much more relieved."

**So I thought - hell if it's over  
  
******

[The quiet room made all the excitement seem very palpable as the five of them sat and wait. Heero paced behind the chairs in the hallway, still keeping his distance from his 'wife' but within range to hear the doctors.

"I'm very proud to say that Duo Maxwell is doing perfectly fine!" came an ecstatic voice from near the elevator, wheeling the gurney back towards the room, flanked by a nurse on each side.

The three pilots made a collective sigh of relief and then a laugh of joy at themselves, while the concerned ex-Wing pilot followed the gurney into the room with a more eased expression on his face.]

"What I saw that day really stopped my pampered heart in its tracks. I'd been jealous, still, of the attention Duo was getting and secretly wondering who would sit by my side for months until I saw him being wheeled through that area. He was always very thin, but I never believed that he was scrawny. But then, his body lain out on pillows and a tub in his mouth and a separate one in his nose with various cables coming out from his oversized hospital gown and terrycloth robe that made him look like Quatre had years ago, all the guilt caught up with me and I left in a hurry."

[He picked up the cellular phone and dialed the highway patrol number, looking away from her face. Feeling the slightest twinge of guilt at getting ready to leave her, he turned back, and regretted it.]

**I had better end it quick  
Or I could lose my nerve**

"Is that all that happened?" the doctor asks. "Of course he woke up, or we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"It was another month before he even opened his eyes, and the pilots were so shaken that the three of them came to the mansion together and went straight into their rooms and went to sleep. Duo had only stayed awake for about fifteen minutes, but it was a lot for his poor psyche to handle, and then he passed out.

"Things progressed quicker after that. His appetite returned days later, and things got a little hectic, but he was obviously himself. He started physical training and then I had to leave for another conference. I heard from Quatre that he kept asking for a cheeseburger and they were going to sneak him in one while Heero slept in the next room."

[The brisk air flowed into the car behind him as he opened the door again and stepped back into the shadows, the note in the folds of the registration papers and the broken end of the key in her palm. He stayed close to the foot lights of the information sign until the flashing lights of the patrol could be seen near by, and then stepped back into the full shadow of the growing night where he'd stashed his things.

"Maybe I could have loved you… if you'd only learned this lesson five or six years ago," the twenty-four year old whispered into the night.]

  
**Are you listening - can you hear me  
  
******

"So what happened?"

"Well, I heard from Quatre that there was a little mix up and Duo didn't remember anyone specifically for a while. Just a bunch of people he could feel safe with and trust. He's got some great instincts. He looked at Heero, said, 'Hey man, where's your wife?' and waited for an answer from his sputtering lips.

"He didn't have a thing to say to that. I got a card in the mail yesterday from him."

"Duo or your husband?"

"Duo. He told me that physical therapy is going well. He said he got a message from a little birdie. It said, 'See you later.'"

[Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei all stand in the background while Heero sputters at Duo's question. Quatre chuckles hoarsely and Trowa just grins while Wufei stares at the amnesic invalid growing back to his old self.

"She was outside waiting, a lot."

**Have you forgotten  
  
******

[Hearing the beginning of a new song, Heero leaned back as the chords continued and the officials help his 'wife.' She looks back at him, almost directly as the last line plays, "_You were free, now you're not, you were free baby,_" and she glowers.]

  
**Just three miles from the rest stop**

**And my mouth's too dry to rage  
  
**

"So he left you?"

"What else could he do? I wouldn't keep him like a caged bird. He's a man, no matter what. Despite how much I miss him, and really wish I weren't a pacifist and could give him something back for leaving me, I know…" her hand clutches a piece of paper in her pocket, "I know what this means.

[She pulls the pages from her glove compartment and the small note drops into her lap as she hands the proper things to the officers, and holds open her hand with the head of the key; she turns to look out in the darkness again.

'If that's how you want it, darling.']

**The light was shining from the radio  
I could barely see her face**

"What did the note say?" the doctor asks her. "Did you ever open it?" his face is mildly intrigued.

"No, I didn't, and I'll tell you why. I threw a fit for a long time, it took a few weeks and three delegates to get me to get back to work, but I know why."

"Don't keep me in expense, Misses Yuy."

"That's Miss Peacecraft, thank you."

"But…?"

  
**But she knew all the words that I never had said  
  
******

"I'm not _the_ most important person in the world, Doctor Reeves. There are other living, loving beings on the earth that need him a lot more than I do. That doesn't mean that either of them are off the hook, but… it's kind of neat that the damsel in distress let go of the cowboy and got her own horse, isn't it?"

**She knew the crumpled-up promise of this ******

"Duo, I'm home," a soft, low voice calls in through the small house. A shuffle step replies and a pale-skinned young man enters the living room and hugs him.

"So did I get anything?"

"Yeah, from Relena. Why did you want to send that crazy thing anyway? She's not sick, she's fine, and for what she's ill of, I don't think a 'Get Well Soon' card will do her any good."

"We're really going to have to work on your sense of humor." Once-nimble fingers slowly open the small envelope.

_Shinigami –_

_Take care of him, and yourself because next time I see you… well, I think you know what'll happen. And just in case, I thought I'd wish you good luck too._

_You're lucky I know you love him as much as I do, because otherwise not even this anger therapist would be able to keep me from killing you, even if I **am** a pacifist._

_- Ojo-san_

**Broken down man - and as I opened up the door  
  
**


	2. regrets

**borrowed love:**

regrets

By Darkwood

Set to "Red Vines" by Aimee Mann

A/N: Part II of _Borrowed Love_**. Kinda dark, from Hilde's POV. **_I have mixed feelings about this fic, but I think it furthers the plot pretty well and I've been trying to write it out for a long time. Enjoy and send feedback, please. Don't own the song by Aimee Mann, but if I did... you can be sure I wouldn't be using angelfire... ^_^;_

  
The headlines of the paper seem to be mocking me. I can't walk down the street without seeing them. This is all my fault. I can't… I can't… I'm sorry Duo. I just can't face this day in and day out any more.

  
He's at it again.

I can't believe this. He said last time was the last time he would do anything like this ever again. He said…

I don't understand him. I suppose that's what this all comes down to. I just don't understand him. I don't think I ever have, and… I don't honestly think I ever will.

I don't know what it was that gave me this allusion… what part of my life deluded me into thinking that maybe I could understand and comfort him. I'm not the one that he's in love with… I never really have been, I suppose.

I'm sorry, Duo…

It seems I've failed you as well.

The last in a long line of disappointments for your heart, I suppose.

_  
Every paper I see has her in it, and always near her side is Him… I hope you're happy, Heero Yuy, you've managed to destroy two lives in one this time, and you didn't even have to pull a trigger._

  
News reached us first that they had been married.

It seemed that the entire world… even the colonies, was talking about it.

First the news said Relena was being avidly pursued by the former Gundam Pilot of 01, Heero Yuy. Then there was the brief engagement, and finally the wedding photographs. The trumped up accusations that she was pregnant and that was why there was such a short engagement…

I saw Duo die a little in that instant.

He locked himself in the bedroom for two days and when he finally came out I hardly recognized him. His eyes were read, bloodshot, and he didn't speak a word to me.

That night he came to me and put his arms around me. I was thrilled beyond belief that he was actually showing interest in me… so thrilled, in fact, that I ignored his state and reveled in the fact that he was touching _me_, and making love to _me_.

What a fool I was.

They're all still on their honeymoon  
just read the dialogue balloon  


I think it was the news of the marriage that really broke his heart. Oh sure, he says that it was because Heero wouldn't say that he loved him, but I knew from the start that he was only doing that because he was afraid.

I mean, he really loved Heero…

He still does, despite the best of my efforts to the contrary.

There isn't a damn thing I can do about the simple fact that Duo will always love Heero, always will.

He carried on quite well, and I'm sure he would've continued if I had. It was as though he was grasping at straws the whole time.

**[ **The only flickering light in the dim room comes from the television. An old movie plays and as the handsome male actor speaks his final words, she peaks softly.

"Duo, are you in there?"

The question falls on deaf ears. Without a reply, she takes a careful step into the room. "Duo? What's wrong?"

A muffled voice replies, "Everything."

'Obviously, if you've come back here after three years' absence,' she thinks. "What can I do, Duo?" her voice is slightly anxious.

"Hide me," he says. She rounds the corner to stand at the foot of the couch he is on. His body is tightly wrapped in on itself, his knees brought to his chin and his arms wrapped securely around his shins, holding them so tightly it appears he will bruise himself. "I don't want… him… anyone to find me."

"Are you sure, Duo?" she asks, heavy heart not daring to hope. "Don't you… lo-"

"I can't love someone that can't love me back!" his voice is thick with emotion, anger and hurt and betrayal. "I won't allow me to ensnare myself on someone I can't be sure of," finally remorse, guilt, sadness are obvious.

Slowly, with much caution, she sits down next to him and puts one hand to his shoulder, comfortingly, reassuringly. "All right, Duo, if that's what you want."

"It…" he hesitates, a moment of silence, "it is what I must want. It is… how it has to be."**]**

[ "Please tell me why you've come today, Miss Schbeiker. I've never seen you around here before."

"Well I didn't come about anything from my past or…"

"Well why did you come?" the man asks tenderly.

"It's about Duo."

"Duo?"

"Yes, Doctor…"

"Alright, well then why don't you tell me a little about yourself, Miss Schbeiker?"

"Well first off, my full name is Hilda Georgia Schbeiker. I don't know my last name since I was put up for adoption right after I was born. My biological parents gave me my first and middle name but the social services didn't believe that having their last name would do me any good."

"Do you feel it would have?"

"No." She folds her hands in her lap.

"Would you like to lie down on the couch?"

"Sure, why not?" she asks in a light tone. "Why-?"

"It oftentimes helps to relax the body before the mind."

"Oh." She gets comfortable. "I think I'm glad that I didn't ever meet them because they did abandon me. I was either a mistake or not worth the price to their lives, so… why should I care about people who found something about me or my birth so misfortunate."

"I see…"

"Please don't patronize me."

"I'm not attempting to patronize you, Hilde, but oftentimes people put up uncaring fronts to disguise their inner feelings."

"Well you just summed up my problem with Duo."

"Who is Duo?"

"An infuriating and exhilarating ball of energy and jokes that always tells the truth but never speaks of his heart!"

"So he's a machine?"

"No. Duo's a person. He was an orphan because for whatever stupid reason he grew up in an orphanage." Hilde lets out a sigh and stares up at the white stucco of the ceiling, "You know you should decorate the ceiling some if so many people lie here. It's driving me crazy."

"Miss Schbeiker, please."]

  
He is just infectious like that. He gets into your system and there's something about him that stays there. I didn't hear word one from his slight self for three years and I welcomed him into the house when I found him on the couch that evening, tired and sobbing.

I would do it again.

I did do it again.

I let him into my bed just as easily.

  
[ "Sorry, he rubbed off on me."]

  
I even agreed not to tell the others he was staying with me. I promised him I wouldn't tell, as a matter of fact and because I promised him I've been lying to them every time they called.

He doesn't want to be found, not by them, not by anyone, and so I won't force him back into their company. He came to me for a reason, damnit.

And even though I can never be Heero for him…

I must be helping in some way, mustn't I?

Even if they care for him, they can't be what's best for him if he ran away from them, can they?

everyone loves you--  
why should they not?  


He never talks about them, or Him. I know, but it's really disturbing. Like now…

We've just gotten home from a little grocery shopping and he's seated in the corner of the kitchen on a stool, staring off into space. He isn't always like this…

Today must be a really bad day if he's not talking at all… I glance at the calendar on the wall and… The carton of milk clatters to the floor.

No wonder…

**[ **A blaze thick and tall raged in the run-down neighborhood and a panic rose from the citizens around the area. As they crowded around they could hear the screams begin, and noticed a small boy lugging a bucket of water towards the stone building. People moved to help as the flames reached the roof, licking the crucifix atop the spire.

The press of bodies grew too much and the boy was pushed backwards as rain began to pour from the sky as the colony's electronic warning systems reacted to the stimuli and pelted the people trying to help. The little boy with a long braid, stared in shock at the blaze, violet eyes wide as he watched the rain extinguish the fire, leaving only blackened stone in its wake.

The officials arrived at the scene, and they missed the little boy slip through them into the smoking building. Within, the little boy headed straight to the area the orphans and the nun and pastor had slept and only looked in one room before he ran out and into the night.

"I'm sorry, Sister Helen…" was all he said to her as she closed her eyes in death's sleep and before he left he took the proffered cross from her still hand and said a silent prayer. He was finishing up the list of children's names when the noises of the officials came to his ears and something urged him to run away from them. He did.**]**

  
I wonder if Heero even knows about today. I wonder if he and Heero ever talked about it… or what Heero would do to comfort Duo when today happened…

I wish I knew… or I wish I could try to help, but I just… don't know what to do. Oh, God… if you're out there, why are you doing this to him? What did he ever do to deserve it?

And I'm the only one who knows  


Silently he gets to his feet, picking up the milk carton and putting it in the refrigerator. "Duo…" I begin.

He does not even look up, returning to his chair and settling himself down with a long-suffering sigh. I don't even think he realizes why he's so depressed and dejected today. I suppose he only thinks that it's another day in an ex-fantasy land…

Why must he hurt so much?

that Disneyland's about to close

**[** "Duo?"

"Yeah Hilde?"

"What was your favorite thing about living with Heero?"

He sat up quickly, pulling from her embrace in the moonlit room. "What the hell kind of question is that to ask?"

With a hurt expression on her face she glanced back at him. "An honest one," she replied truthfully. _Which is more than I can say for you lately._

"Can we not talk about this now?"

"Duo…" she opened her arms and he leaned back down, a guilty look on his face. "I know you're in love with him, Duo, will you tell me why?"

For a long moment there was silence and then he leaned back against the pillows. She settled herself against his side and propped her chin up on his chest to watch his face as he began to speak in a soft, quiet voice.

"I don't really know why… I suppose it's because he needs me."

Her brow furrowed.

"I know it seems funny, Hilde, but it's true. I don't even think he realized it, but he needed me. It wasn't like you, Hilde… Heero, he… really needed me. He," Duo paused, lifting one hand to her back and the other to brush the bangs from his face, "he didn't know anything about living, Hilde. Do you know I had to teach him how to sit still and watch the sunset?"**]**

  
"Hilde, I'm tired, I'm… I'm going to turn in early tonight, is that ok, Hilde?"

He always uses my name when he's forgetting who I am. When he feels like it doesn't matter what's going on around him, that's when he uses my name. He doesn't do it very often… I'm not saying that he's deliriously happy or anything, but normally he's in so neutral a mood that he can forget who he's with and just exist.

I don't think I can settle for that… but…

It's so nice to have him.

Even if it is a lie.

I don't suppose you'd give it a shot  
knowing all that you've got  


I nod and he trails back into the bedroom.

  
**[** "He came to me and I was so happy, Quatre."

The blond young man takes a sip of his tea and looks out over the ocean as the afternoon sun sizzles the skin of those lounging on the beach below their deck seats. "What changed, Hilde?" his voice is reserved.

"He's just killing himself by staying away from Heero, he isn't living anymore."

"You understand how they were involved, don't you?" I nod. "Give him the support he needs then, I mean, it is what you've always wanted, isn't it?" his voice is dark, heavy as he instructs me how to proceed.

"But… Quatre isn't it wrong for me to do that… when he's like this?"

"The end result will be the same. If you can make him happy…" he sips his tea again, and then his eyes, clear, chilled, turn to me. "Heero hurt him, Hilde. I can't tell you why, but Duo needed something he couldn't understand how he is. I hate to say it, I hate the thought of saying it, but maybe the two of them just weren't meant to be.

"It's like Duo once told me during the war," it seems so far off now. I'm not the strong independent soldier I was; now I'm the desperate girl pining after forbidden fruit.**]**

Are cigarettes and Red Vines  
just close your eyes, 'cause, baby--  


[ "It seems odd how even though I am the more balanced one in this relationship, the more responsible, the more mature… that I'm the one who's got the nasty habit. He goes to bed every night and I light up."

"Light up?"

"Cigarettes?"

The therapist seemed to relax in his chair.

"I go through a pack a day… it seems… sometimes two if I find I really can't take it."

"Have you tried talking to anyone? His friends, you've mentioned before…"

"I promised him I wouldn't talk to anyone, but I broke down and spoke to Quatre about it. He swore to me that he wouldn't let on that he knew where Duo was, and… it being Quatre, I can trust him."

"Well if you trusted him once… can't you trust this Quatre person again?"

"You just don't get it, do you, doctor?"

"Apparently not."

"I promised him… after that once… that I'd never do it again. They can't help caring about him, but because of _Him_, he thinks they just want to bring him back because He wants them to…"

"So you've taken up smoking."

"Yes."

"Does he know?"

"No."

"…"

"I can't… do this by myself anymore, I really can't…" She draws in a deep breath. "And I can't do a damn thing about it."]

  
**[ ** I like to take long walks to clear my head… break time, if I'm not smoking I'm usually walking somewhere. It doesn't matter where, I just have to get out of that damn garage because it's too stuffy with him in there.

And when I get back he's always there with a smile and a wave and a wrench hanging out of his mouth and sliding himself under the hood or the engine or whatever. I've never understood how he could do that, just smile it away like he does.**]**

  
And the question keeps coming to me…

Whose life are we really living here?

you never do know  
and I'll be on the sidelines,  
with my hands tied,  
watching the show  


[ "I told him when I spoke to Quatre, and he said he didn't mind. He has said that about everything I've said to him about myself…" She rubs her hands together as though they are cold. "Every reason I've ever given him to find fault with me, he has responded to me with 'I don't mind, Hilde.' I just don't get it… I've asked him so many times."

"It seems to me that he does mind, at least a little."

"But that's the point… if he does mind, why the hell doesn't he say anything about it?" Slowly she leans her head on her knees and rubs her eyes. "Why doesn't he react? Something ought to make him react, shouldn't it?"

Slowly, the doctor rises from his chair and moves to stand by the window.

"Miss Schbeiker, you're going to have to…"

"Let me guess… I'm going to have to talk to him? Talk to someone? Isn't that what I'm paying you for?" With a disgusted and angry snort she grabs her jacket and stands, stalking out the door.]

  
**Well, it's always fun and games until  
it's clear you haven't got the skill  
in keeping the gag from going too far  
**

Christmas is the hardest. I want so much for him to be happy and enjoy the festivities… I look around and people are celebrating so much… it hurts to see him so dead inside. The peace we all enjoy now, he should be enjoying…

I remember what it was like right after the war ended.

That first holiday…

**[ ** I answered the door as groggily as I had ever answered any door in my entire life.

I was hung over.

I was unshowered, unkempt, and I was sleepy.

I was totally unprepared for the ball of energy that was Duo Maxwell on an eggnog rush to bound in the door with his arms full of belated Christmas presents and tugging behind him a less than cheerful Perfect Soldier.

As a matter of fact I was down right frightened of that last part. Duo on a sugar rush was bad, Heero being forced to participate…

One did not get in his way when he was unhappy, and for all the world he looked like he wanted nothing more than to pull a gun and blow something away.

It was inevitable, though, that he fall into the holiday spirit with Duo attached to him. Hell, I couldn't even stay completely timid and gloomy as he began to deck my apartment with spruce and pine and red bows.

It was amazing at how soon we had hot chocolate and were singing Christmas carols. What was even more amazing was how afterwards we went out into the evening and chased snowflakes like they were butterflies or… lightning bugs in a summer evening…

Heero caught just as many as the two of us did, and it seemed… that evening, that he played with us, just another teenager in the snow. Falling on his face, grumbling about the cold, sure, but he also laughed in a benign way and smiled a lot.

I stared wistfully after them as they trudged to their car after walking me back upstairs and saw the quick kiss that Duo stole from him. It made me jealous to think of the two of them together while I had to spend the holiday alone, a charity case for their affection.**]**

So you're running 'round the parking lot  
'til every lightning bug is caught  
punching some pinholes  
in the lid of a jar  


Looking back on it I don't mind so much. The day was happy and long and we all loosened up and forgot the war for a little while. Annoyingly enough, however, it seems that it was never quite enough, because as soon as the doors to the car closed it all set in again, like the time was being shut off like a moment in history that can no longer be touched by mortal hands.

Heero _had_ smiled though. Duo _had _kissed him and he had responded…

But the time had to end, apparently…

Crushing both images with age and weight and a blatant lack of verbal communication.

  
**while we wait in the car**  
  
  
It's funny the things that come back to you when you're lying half alive in a hospital room. I remember everything that happened vividly.

I cornered him about it, and we quarreled.

We'd been doing that since the news of the wedding, so it wasn't anything new.

**[ ** ****"Duo, you're doing it again!"

"Doing what?" he asked in a low voice of warning. "What am I doing, Hilde?"

"You're pulling away again!"**]**

  
**With cigarettes and Red Vines  
just close your eyes, 'cause, baby--  
**

**[ ** ****"Look, Hilde, I'm not doing anything other than living my life. I thought I was living it with you… but apparently I was wrong."

"Duo you aren't doing any such thing! You aren't living your life, you're torturing yourself." He turned away to head for the kitchen. "You know you're still in love with him."

He stopped, frozen in his tracks, door pressed open forward with an incredulous stare into space.

"That's right, Duo, you heard me. I know it's true… I know who you're thinking about when we're together… when you get that distant look in your eye you think I don't know?"

"Hilde… I…"**]**

  
you never do know

**[ ** ****"How long have you known?"

"Since the beginning, Duo…"**]**

  
I think I'd always known. It wasn't something that I was ever truly able to put out of my mind, even though I couldn't… wouldn't do anything about it. I needed Duo, the way he claimed that Heero had always needed him, but no… I really had needed Duo for a long time. I really needed him because I was afraid not to need him, afraid to be myself without some sort of a support.

In the end it was always about him, and I slowly came to realize that it made me that much worse of a person, and that much less of an adult than he was.

At least he knew what he was getting us into, right?

  
**and I'll be on the sidelines,  
with my hands tied,  
watching the show  
**  
**  
[ ** "Why don't… why don't you just go back to him, Duo?"**]**

  
**And tell me, would it kill you**

**[ ** ****"I can't."

"Why can't you?"

"I just can't, all right?" Duo turned, shouting it in her face. "Accept the fact that I can't and let it go!"

"I can't just accept it, Duo, I love you!"

"I can't go back to him."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't, all right? I can't go back to him because it's my fault! I failed him, don't you see?"**]**

  
**would it really spoil everything  
if you didn't blame yourself**

"…If I had you as mine, I wouldn't do anything to lose you, and I'd show you how to love me, if you were hurting me…"

**[ ** ****"I said that to him, Hilde, I did! I swore to him that I would show him… well I failed him, Hilde, and I can't face that. I can't face him because of it. I lied to him, don't you see? I haven't lied to anyone in a long, long time…"

"That is a damn lie in itself."

He stopped short and looked at her startled.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You're lying by saying that, and you've been lying to me for an entire year!" She threw her hands into the air. "And even if you did lie to him that doesn't mean the whole problem is your fault, some things… some things just can't be taught, Duo, sometimes you've just got to _know_ them, and it's obvious that you and He share a lot more than you think you do."**]**

  
**do you know what I mean?**  
  
  
I was so mad, so angry…

I pulled out a pack of cigarettes and stormed out of the house, going straight into the alley behind us to smoke them.

  
**Cigarettes and Red Vines  
just close your eyes, 'cause,  
baby--**

["What do you have to say for yourself now?" the doctor asks quietly.

"I'm sorry I stormed out last week."

"That isn't what I meant, and I am quite sure that you know it, Miss Schbeiker."

"I'm really sick of you calling me 'Miss Schbeiker' all the time."

"It's a personal and a professional courtesy, Miss…" noting the angry and volatile look in her eye, he cut himself off and said, "Hilde."

"Much better."

"I'd like to know what you regret so much that you keep coming."

"I…"]

  
**you never do know  
and I'll be on the sidelines,  
**

[ "I think what I regret most is that I blew up at him. I lied to him, in a way… he hadn't been lying to me when he was with me, but he hadn't been speaking either. So yes, he did mislead me, but it wasn't a lie.

"I simply expected more of him than he had to give me."

"So you regret wanting that of him?"

"No." She replies evenly.]

  
And that's the truth. I don't regret wanting all he had to give anyone. I regret that I wasn't the one he wanted to give it to. I regret that I wasn't the person that was right for him. I regret that he left Heero in the first place…

I regret what happened after I stormed out of the house with my cigarettes…

I regret that I haven't seen him since.

  
with my hands tied,

  
I even regret the pain Relena must be in now that the two of them are on their way to becoming a couple again…

Maybe I regret being so passive about not pushing Duo earlier.

I certainly regret the fight itself.

  
**watching the show  
**

I know he's blaming himself for this too, and I regret that.

Because really it's never truly his fault…

watching the show

  
And I regret the dead parts of him that I caused.

Looking back… I watched a lot more than I did.

We were together and yet, we weren't… so maybe I regret that I didn't do more than just watch him fall apart in on himself, and I most certainly regret that it was a show I only watched and couldn't affect, but…

I don't regret knowing you, Duo.

I don't regret…

… much of anything, really.


	3. running

Borrowed Love:   
  
_running  
  
_by Darkwood  
Set to: **"Call Me, Call Me" by Yokko Kanno**

Disclaimer: I don't own GW, nor do I own Yokko Kanno, "Call Me, Call Me", Cowboy Bebop, or anything other than the collage nature of this fic and the made up scenes that never happened in the series. Enjoy, mina-san.

***

[ Taking one last look over his shoulder, Duo starts the motorcycle.

His pride and joy, the motorcycle had been a present from Heero at the end of the war. With a sarcastic chuckle Duo sighs, _Ironic that it's the very thing that's going to be carrying me away from him._

The window of the apartment he looks back up at it is dark, but suddenly there is movement and a small, dim light comes on. The bedside lamp in the outer bedroom, Duo knows as he watches the angles that it makes on the curtains.

_ Heero must be waking up,_ Duo thinks fondly. He revs the engine of the motorcycle once and pulls out of the parking space below the somewhat well-to-do apartment building. At the stoplight, which just happens to be red, he can't help but look back at the window and seeing the light has multiplied. He shakes his head. _He should find the note soon,_ Duo reasons, looking impatiently up at the light to see it turn green.

Forcing himself to get on with it, and that it is too late to turn back now, Duo pulls out of the intersection in the predawn light. Things look grayscale to him as he passes, the visor of his helmet down he passes Wufei as the Preventer returns home from work.

Duo keeps his eyes straight ahead and hopes that with his braid tucked down the back of his jacket the ex-Shenlong pilot won't notice him as he makes his escape.

His hopes are answered as Wufei, looking very sleep deprived, drives numbly towards the building and pulls into the garage next door. Duo lets out a sigh of relief as he heads for the interstate and makes his way to the space port.]

'It isn't hard to spot them out there, dancing center floor and smiling at each other.' I smile at the people Hilde is talking to while my heart starts to cracks. Heero's face tries to move recently used muscles and makes the best smile he's ever smiled in public. I bite my tongue to keep from growling and smile at the joke someone made.

Hilde leans over and whispers in my ear just as Heero turns to seek out my eyes, and the urgent whisper of "Why aren't you paying attention!" goes straight through my head.

"I need a drink. Hilde, would you like anything?"

"Please," she smiles with an acid stare after me that I catch out of the corner of my eye, and halfheartedly returns to her conversation.

Over his shoulder I hear the suppressed tones as they all ask her, "He's a gundam pilot? You're so lucky, Hilde! He's cute." I keep my walk at medium pace as I feel the faces of different people turn to look at me as Heero makes his way over after brushing off Relena.

"Duo…" he starts, but I smile and it disarms him. "Are you ok with this?"

I was the one, after all, that suggested we take the girls to escape notice. In the distance I see Trowa and Quatre, the later of which waves me over, but I shake my head. Heero puts a hand on my forearm, and I start. "You're tense, Duo."

"No big change there." Heero looks at me and I regret my words, "Just reassure me that…"

"I'm having a horrid time without you near," he whispers, truthfully, and I can see it in his eyes.

  
[ Even if no one else expected it of him, Duo expected it of himself. The most normal life possible he could live, first as an orphan, and then as a gundam pilot, known as Shinigami. But fate had a different card to play against his naïve ambitions for the end of his life and eternity.]

  
**I close my eyes and I keep seeing things****  
**

With a disgusted grunt, I down the punch and watch as he drifts back over to her. To her…

I turn and head straight for the doors.

  
I should really just give it all up. Every time I see him it's one way, and every time he sees her it's another. This constant merry-go-round is one ride I wouldn't mind getting off, for the love of it all. I don't need this sort of abuse by him. He's already had all I have to give him, hasn't he? What does putting me on a leash and giving it a yo-yo string do either of us?

**Rainbow waterfalls****  
sunny liquid dreams**

  
[ The room was dark and Duo lay in bed, unable to sleep and alone in the dorm room. The door opened and he looked up. Heero entered the room to find Duo staring at him. Not noticing beyond the point of initial discovery, he glared at the violet-eyed young man and went over to his dresser.

Duo continued to stare despite the discouragement given; he had long since learned to disregard the hate stares and angry looks from the other pilot. His conscious trapped in fantasies that made him blush, he only noticed what was happening about when Heero tossed his shirt to the side and continued to strip down to go shower.

That certainly was a revelation for Duo. He was always rather secretive with his body, whether it was pride or self-consciousness he couldn't tell, but there Heero was, knowing he had an audience, and still striping off his clothes and then just going into the bathroom to casually take a shower.

Duo's cheeks reddened, feeling guilty at not looking away from the boy. He lowered his eyes to his lap and bit back a gasp as he noticed his arousal. It wasn't like he'd never seen a male body before, only that it was usually his, which he knew every imperfection and weak spot on. He didn't posses the muscles Heero did; his body was equipped for his specialty - stealth. But Heero… Duo put his hands up to his flushed cheeks and tried to shake the image of the tanned skin from his mind, but it didn't work as he continued to see Heero's body and his mind ran through a list of things to do with it. Duo knew a few things he'd like to try, but his self-preservation denied him most of the images, his subconscious mind understanding the danger of walking up to an angry tiger and…

For a long time he sat there, staring at the wall, occasionally looking back at the bathroom door to confirm that the object of his obsession remained in the bathroom, and eventually saw something he didn't remember seeing on the anger-clouded visage he watched closely.]

  
**Confusion creeps inside me raining doubt**

  
That's just the thing, it isn't doing either of us any damn good, and that's a serious problem. I can't just sit back and watch both our lives go to shit because of my own codependent nature. I love the damn bastard, and I can't just let him being so into my body and the pleasure it brings him that he misses out on real happiness. So I'm going to do it.

  
And still, an hour later, I find myself fleeing the area, leaving him with her, and Hilde with her friends for a respite in the garden before I go home to candy and ice cream topped with a little bit of homemade self-pity and a cherry full of salvation on the top. As I'm catching my breath near the large fountain I find myself close to Wufei, who is sitting facing the center column with his eyes only half open. His white suit is still pristine. I will never understand how he does that, but I suppose that's part of why I wear black. It's harder to see the dirt on the black, even if you can feel it. Maybe someday I'll switch to brown just to give everyone a headache, but the outfit would loose it's affect.

Of all the pilots, I believe Wufei and Trowa are the only two I don't have a close connection with. It's unsurprising since Trowa blew up Deathscythe and Wufei… well even when we were trapped in that cell together he kept a distance between the two of us. I bore everything on the outside and he just tossed the key to the guards when they passed and the safe stayed shut inside him somewhere I've never seen opened.

He notices me, I know, it's like when a horse is ignoring you but they keep an ear pointed in your direction so you know its saying 'stay back, I don't like you,' or something like that. I know the look because I've seen it on Heero.

Heero…

And the worst part of it all is that I can't trust him.

Ok, so I can trust him as far as I can throw him.

I can trust him to fight for the world, to protect the colonies, to get the girl, and then to come home and fuck me…

The Perfect Soldier.

He would find the one person that he could trust to be discreet and to understand, or the one person he would think would understand. I mean there really isn't any reason that I shouldn't understand that it isn't about him caring about me. It really isn't about that between us.

  
[ Duo was so lost in the trance of his imagination that he stared right through Heero's real body and at the wall. He probably could have pried words from Heero then, and sated his curiosity about the other questions he longed to present the other pilot with, but had a severe problem working his mouth.

"Duo?" Heero growled, his voice very near his pale ear. Heero shocked him and Duo recoiled, only to find the two tan hands were planted firmly on both sides of him. Duo succeeded only in banging into one of those arms and sliding until he was on his back.

Then Heero started undressing him, all swift, deft hands and an intent stare at every inch of skin he exposed. Duo was still dumbstruck and didn't even make a move. Not even when Heero flipped him onto my back and slid the black pants from his waist.

What happened after that… a lot of creaking of bedsprings and grunting and Duo's face growing redder and redder as the process continued. He stepped out of his body and had a conference with himself while blind eyes stared at Heero's skin. He finally came to the conclusion that he was enjoying it, if only because Heero was touching him it didn't matter, but he did enjoy it, felt a different sort of completion than the one he had only found before in the heat of battle.

And he had wanted Heero in the beginning. Since that moment when violet eyes had locked with cobalt and the gun fired in Duo's hands he had wanted Heero in some impossible way that his imagination conjured up for him. Heero began to slow his movements and Duo began to feel the dull throb of pain emanating from his rear. Finally, it appeared, Heero had finished because he came inside Duo and pulled out.

Duo, stunned and frozen, did not realize what had happened until Heero lay down beside him and began to run his hands over Duo's back to try and coax something out of him. He received only a wincing yawn. Heero mumbled something that Duo didn't try to make out as his arms wrapped around his body and pulled him closer.

Just as Heero's eyes fell closed and he slipped into an unmoving slumber, Duo began to worry. 'I must have been horrible. It must have been the worst time he's had in his entire life with… with anybody, I think.' The logical part of Duo's brain, the part that had also been the first to realized that he liked it, shook his head at Duo's self-doubt and then Duo fell asleep snoring almost inaudibly.]

  
**Gotta get to you**

  
At first it was just that.

At first I could let it be just that… casual sex.

Hurt like a bitch, but I could understand the need for it, and I didn't complain, didn't say a damn word to him about how he treated me because of it.

Or maybe because he was trained that way, and I always knew that.

**But I don't know how**

"You're supposed to be inside, Maxwell."

"Yes, I suppose I am, aren't I, Wufei?"

"What, no nickname?" I draw in a deep breath but he stops me with, "thank you."

"Ah, don't thank me, Heero got sick of it, and when he stopped responding I asked him what was wrong and then he said 'I don't like it.' So I asked why and he said, 'It feels demeaning.' So I figured that if it felt demeaning to him to be called 'chan' and 'kun' and stuff… maybe that's how you felt too."

He looks over at me, I'm leaning against the lip of the fountain now and staring at the moonlit water, and I see a small smile surface in his eyes before it is attacked by his coldness and anguish… no grief and dies. I never used to bother with anyone at all, but… something feels so right when I talk to other people. They… respond.

"I see you are, as well, fascinated by the rhyme of your inner thoughts."

I look over at him, "What does that mean?"

"I heard a saying once that said, something along the lines of 'Beware the deadly rhyme of private thoughts.' And as I find myself being sucked in by the thoughts I have of the war, it is only natural that others do as well. But tell me, why is Heero inside with Relena?"

"He came as her escort… or whatever. He's got to be-"

"That is not what I asked. Or rather, I meant to ask why he is not out here with you."

Why did he have to be out here? Why couldn't it have been just the empty garden?

What some people don't understand, or won't… is that it isn't that I'm unhappy with him. I enjoy spending time with Heero, being with him… being _his_. But I just can't accept that I can be so completely enamored of him, so totally wrapped up in this life we are supposedly sharing, that it can be so entirely one sided.

That's my problem with the whole situation.

  
The rustle of bushes alerts our attention to a person coming towards them. Wufei stands up and faces the area the noises are coming from until we hear the voice of the princess. "Heero! Where'd you go? The slow dances are starting soon, you don't need Duo for them, I'll show you how."

She comes crashing through the bushes and I notice Heero up a tree. He motions me for quiet and so I sally up to her as she begins brushing her horrid orange dress off and whisper, "I can tell you where Heero will be tonight."

"You can?" all her skepticism melts away at the sound of his name. Thank God I'm not that bad.

"Sure. In bed, with me."

Her eyes widen and she slaps me, or at least she tries to but since she's a lot weaker than I thought she was. Scary. So I stare her down, I'm three inches taller than her, and she backs away. Then she runs as fast as she can back towards the party. I smirk, not even bothering to mention the fact that she left a shoe and there's a nasty snag on one side of her body.

Wufei picks up the earring she lost when she slapped me and chuckles, "Clip on," he says in delighted disgust. "Can't women ever do things right?"

"Not in my life," Heero says as he dusts off his hands and slaps his gloves against his thigh once before putting them in his pocket. "Did she slap you hard?" his hand traces that side of my face gently.

"No, all better now," I purr and lean my head into his hand.

I hear Wufei chuckle again and Heero looks at him sternly. "Hey, no doubt if you ask me, Duo." I just continue to purr as he excuses himself and heads back inside to alert Relena of the loss of her bauble.

"No doubt of what?"

I choke momentarily and bend to pick up the shoe. "Can I make a wish first?"

"On an ugly orange shoe? If you think that's going to make it come true. You could just tell me. You said it yourself, I'm much more reliable than wishing."

"Aha but I don't normally wish about you."

"I can't get you pregnant," he says with a smile just for me, he nips at my neck, "and there isn't anywhere comfortable out here…"

"Is it all about sex with you?" I snap.

It seems even he isn't what I wanted to come out here after me.

  
**Call me, call me**

  
[ Heero was gone by the time that I woke up and the craziest dream wouldn't leave my head. It was my fantasy of how our first time would have been. In the dream he was tender and considerate. As I rolled out of bed to go take my morning shower I found that the reality and the dream were far separate cries from each other.

I hobbled around that morning attempting to go about my daily routine before I gave up entirely and got back in bed, hoping for a respite from the daily toil of school and missions. I wasn't nearly as lucky as I thought I would be getting Heero as my bedmate. He climbed the stairs with an English muffin and a glass of milk and began nudging me with his kneecap to try and wake me.

He didn't pull the gun until I swiped at his knee halfheartedly. The click of the safety being removed woke me up to my fullest, and my eyes traveled around the room and finally up the sights of the gun and his face. I considered banging my head into the headboard but he set the food down and started putting on his shoes.

It was when he started tying his shoes that I started to feel like a prostitute, in a way. I got no response at all for my troubles the previous evening. 'Heero might like me,' I reasoned with myself, 'but he isn't in love with me, and he doesn't even care enough to ask if I'm in pain.'

So I gingerly got to my haunches and bean to eat the English muffin like I hadn't seen food in years and slipped into my shoes while I wolfed down the milk.

He was waiting, agitatedly, at the doorway, while I carefully picked up my books so he wouldn't know how badly he'd hurt me. He began tapping his watch exasperatedly when I decided that the pretenses I was holding up could go to hell and just yanked my bag up and shuffle-stepped after him to keep from jarring my battered insides too much.

The day passed in silence for me, everyone could see I wasn't feeling well, and if they couldn't, one look at Heero's dour expression cured any curiosity. I almost burst into tears at that point, so I excused myself and sort of ran to the restroom.]

The sad thing is that despite it all I didn't care. I thought, naively, that it made me special, in some way, because we had sex. I laugh when I look back at it, since it really wasn't that great and it really wasn't that important.

I was just an accessory to the mission, then.

But still…

**Let me know it's alright**

  
I don't know when it was that I first saw the two of them together and actually _thought_ that they would make a good couple. The first time I saw her, when she showed up at school and he made a quick escape of her presence, I thought it was because of me. Obviously, she did too.

Relena Peacecraft.

I really never got to know much about her, back then in the first couple of meetings, other than that she was dumb enough to try and interfere with his mission… not something any smart or sane person would do. I knew that.

And I knew that she hated me for being close to him.

But she didn't understand that I really wasn't.

He only lets people as close as he wants to, and he only let me as close to him as he had to in order to maintain the physical intimacy he'd decided he would have of me. Yes, I could have refused him, but I liked him… I respected him. And so I decided that if the only way he would let me be a part of his life was like a lover, then I would take it.

It wasn't like I wasn't attracted to him.

But something in his eyes whenever she showed… shows… up…

I think I'm just the consolation prize.

[ I stand at the payphone and stare at it quietly. Outside there's a line of people waiting to use it, but I just can't seem to make up my mind. I knew this was going to happen, I knew it. From the moment I set out to leave him I knew that it would be hard to do, and I knew I would miss him and I knew…

But… I didn't.

I had no idea how much it would hurt to be without him, to miss his arms around me at night, the faint tickle of his breath against my neck… The lazy way he curled his fingers in my hair…

Angrily, I turn and leave the phone booth, giving my coins to the woman next in line.]

[ That night I was determined to get revenge, but I didn't get the chance. I had a mission the following morning and wouldn't have time to even think about Heero, let alone revenge, since I had insomnia and would have to fight to fall asleep. It wasn't much different though. Heero entered the room quietly and pushed me into the mattress some, and he fucked me silly. It didn't hurt much by that time.

I fell asleep like a baby almost as soon as the hand he wrapped around me slacked off after orgasm, and to my delight, we stayed that way for a while. He lay on top of me during most of the night, and I just sort of rested with my face on his forearm while his other arm snacked around my waist and down so his hand rested on my inner thigh. At some point we must have turned to one side because I woke up and he was spooned behind me, fingers gently kneading my thigh. I still had one cheek pressed against his forearm, and his breathing was tickling my exposed ear.

I thought then, 'I don't care how much it hurts, just so long as I can wake up like this more often.' I carefully extricated myself and showered, dressing quickly in the dark pre-dawn blackness of the room. He moaned and shifted, hand pulling the pillow closer and fingers groping at the sheets.

I slipped out, my smirk firmly replaced despite the lingering pain in my movements. Piloting Deathscythe was certainly different that mission than it ever had been, but I rose to the challenge, I think, rather well.]

  
**Call me, call me**

  
Chasing away the darkness a single light is turned on to illuminate a desk. Duo reaches for the telephone as it starts to ring. The digital display of the phone number says **Winner Enterprises **and the clock flashes 3:35 am 3.10.199 and Duo yawns as he says, "Yo Quat, what's up?"

"Hello Duo. You seemed rather distant last night, are you all right?"

His bare body hops up onto the desk and he rubs his face a little. "Sure, I enjoyed seeing my boyfriend twirled around the dance floor by my most hated enemy. I mean, how would you feel, Q? And why are you calling at three-forty in the morning?"

"I'm just… worried."

"Look Quatre, I'm fine, just… waiting."

"Waiting?"

Violet eyes rake over the body on the bed and he mutes the phone for a minute before saying, "He can show he loves me, I want to hear it. But don't you dare go telling him what I said."

"If you don't want me to, Duo."

"I want you not to, Quatre. Some things he has to do on his own without any help. Hey, you want to do lunch tomorrow, just the two of us? Heero's got something or other to do that I can't know about, so… I'm left all by my lonesome."

"Where are we going, then?" Quatre resigns himself to fretting about Heero and Duo's relationship.

"You decide. We can go wherever you want for a change."

"We usually end up doing that anyway, Duo. You should learn to get reservations."

"But that's no fun, Quatre," Duo mock-whines.

There is silence on the line for a moment, and then Quatre says, with a stutter, "T-try to go easy on him Duo, it's hard for his type."

"I am, consider the facts, Quatre." There is a gasp on the other end of the line.

"You asked him?"

"Keep your voice down some, Quatre, some people sleep at night."

  
**Don't you think it's 'bout time**

  
[ It continued like that for a while.

We'd be separate, something would happen, we'd end up together, and he'd fuck my brains out nightly. Trowa gave me a little secret advice on how to handle the pain, and it worked. Heero eventually got around to jerking me off while he did it, and I started to… enjoy him having his way with me. I began to look forward to it, even.]

  
And then the impossible happened. The indestructible Perfect Soldier finally managed to get himself like he had planned on in the beginning when he jumped off without opening his parachute.

  
**Please won't you call and  
**

[ I had asked him to take one of the routes the MDs would be shipped along, and he just gave a noise I had learned to treat in the affirmative. Ten hours later and I was watching Wing blow up in a bright flash of light. He just had to step out on the edge of the platform, didn't he? At least I know his body was in one piece, even if he was dead to me, and the world.

Quatre was falling apart next to me, grabbing his heart, and I tried to comfort him when Trowa appeared on our screens and said some meaningful bullshit while he picked up his body. I beat my hands against the consoles around me, and Quatre looked up at me.

"Give him back!" I screamed, not realizing that my radio was on. "No, HEERO!"

And then it was over, and the Maguanacs had us going to some base and… he was dead! I cried for a few hours, well I wanted to, anyway, but just because that unfeeling raping bastard was dead didn't mean the war was over. Hell, if I didn't go on he'd get a better spot in heaven for fighting until the end. So, numbed by my anger and tricks to hide the real hurt, I followed Quatre and his pals into the base and said a few silent farewells before yanking my one memento from the screens in front of me and wrapping it around my cross.]

  
Every night I woke up screaming, gasping for breath, and waited for him to chastise me.

And then slowly, surely, the realization that he wasn't in bed with me, or at his laptop, or glaring down at me from where he was standing over the bed or by the window would creep in and I would feel utterly and completely sick. I think I drove Quatre almost mad by it.

He knew, of course, that there was something more going on than what I had presented to him and to the others. He knew, or at least he had some idea, that I was hiding something. Not lying to anyone, because no, I wouldn't do that, _even_ for him.

  
[ Quatre had a gun aimed at the bed and he was staring at me funny. I just continued to pant and put a hand to my forehead to wipe away the cold sweat there. I stared through my hand, and Quatre dismissed the guards and sat down on my bed.

"Do you want to talk about these nightmares you're having, Duo?"

"Perceptive," I murmured, feeling his comments even in the darkness. "No I don't, Quatre."]

  
**Ease my mind**

Sadly enough even when he was bad, worrying about himself and nothing else, he was still satisfying on some very basic level. Something deep inside me was horribly, horribly afraid of the whole war, sometimes. The little boy inside me that saw his parents killed, and the orphanage burned, and his best friend killed by a plague there was a cure for. That little boy got really scared sometimes, and when he got scared, even Shinigami couldn't control him fully.

He had the run of my body when he got scared and I let him.

I was never quite strong enough to believe in the strength Deathscythe and I had together, and he could take over when it was very… inopportune.

The nightmares… were almost always about being dead and not seeing any of the people that we both knew were waiting just across death's threshold for us. Father Maxwell… Sister Helen… Solo…

The long forgotten people that are my parents…

And sometimes it got so horrible that I couldn't tell myself from the dead people… I was no better than those I had killed on the battlefield because there was, like with all of the pilots, this bubble around me where people just couldn't get inside. Oh, sure, Hilde tried, came pretty damn close I'll give her credit where it's due, but I couldn't let her get too close because she was just another innocent civilian, in the end, and I couldn't stand to see her hurt, even though it meant that I would be all the lonelier.

No one could touch me.

Touch is one of the most basic human forms of communication, along with sight. But the eyes are more easily fooled than the skin, they can be played tricks on, as the Zero System showed me…

And Heero… he walked right up to me, disregarding that damn protective bubble, and he showed me how alive I really was. It hurt, sometimes, but the pain was all a part of the reality that existed. The pain was real, at least, I could tell, with the sweat and the adrenaline and the pain… that I was living.

He gave me that.

A thing I desperately needed.

He showed me that I was alive, even if he wasn't doing it out of love, at the time.

At least he cared, in some manner.

  
**Reasons for me to find you****  
**

[ My stomach lurched from something other than the G-force and I envisioned his face when he would see me next. I could just see his eyes that evening staring at me from across the room as he snapped his laptop closed and stalked over to me. 'I've missed you,' his eyes would say to me. 'Come to me and I will make sure you know I'm alive, you will not doubt. Surrender to me.']

  
And still the next time I saw him it was just the same way. Even though I knew that his first word had been her name, even though I expected him to shoot me and leave me dead and dying in that cell on the colony, I still couldn't deny that it was _good _to see him.

And sadly, yet again, he still turned me on.

  
**Peace of mind****  
**

[ This dank, smelly cage smells worse than Relena and her pink limo. Suddenly he isn't so wonderful anymore as he points the muzzle of his rifle at me. I can understand why he has to do it, I'm only glad I got to gaze into his eyes once more. I think that will make up for the bullet, and my life. He can have it all since he gave me my last request.

"Can you walk?"]

  
It was those words that made me pause, stock still. I had opened my eyes to look him in the face, so that I could see his eyes… those empty blue masterpieces, and have the image of his face engrained as my last living sight.

And then he didn't pull the trigger. It was the oddest, most unexpected feeling and I looked up at him, puzzled. It would be better for him to shoot me, take away the liability I would present.

It would be better for him to move on and find someone else that was a convenient fuck toy for the rest of the war. Someone he wouldn't have to fight alongside or get captured and need to be rescued.

**  
What can I do****  
**

I'm very glad that he didn't.

**  
to get me to you**

  
He didn't shoot me, and I suppose that should give me hope that he cares for me, but it really doesn't. I mean, he didn't shoot her either and he had just as many chances to shoot her as he has to shoot me. I don't think being on even footing with her is as good as being without him would be.

  
**I had your number quite some time ago**

  
Duo sits at the table with a pair of sunglasses on to hide the haunted look in his eyes from the crowd, but when Quatre arrives he takes them off and sets them on the table.

"What's happened, Duo?"

"I can't do it anymore, Quatre. I just can't. We keep carrying on like we always did."

"Duo, it is the same as you've always been, isn't it?"

"I want more than that, Quatre. I love Heero, I can't just keep going on feeling like he might walk out tomorrow. I mean I know that he won't but I just can't believe even now that I'm more important than 'the mission' or, 'the laptop' or…"

"Duo, you need a little more faith in him. Heero's never had emotions before."

"Are you so sure he has them?" Duo snaps back and then looks away from Quatre's eyes guiltily. "Look he has gotten warmer lately but… it's been almost three years since we got together and two since he actually…"

"Actually what, Duo?"

"Quatre you know the difference between sex and making love, right?"

Confused, Quatre says, "Not really, I suppose."

"Well one is just about pleasuring the body. It was like that between the two of us for a long time, Quatre. And it was one-sided for a while too. I found out later that Dr. J had taught him that aspect of relaxation as well. He knew quite a bit when he took me that night and I didn't know anything about sex with guys."

"Shouldn't that mean something, Duo?"

"Yes, it should, and it does. It means he hurt me when he could have been gentler about it. It means he knew how to not hurt me and he didn't." Duo takes a sip of his water.

His companion starts to open his mouth but their food arrives. Duo starts to eat slowly and Quatre becomes seriously worried. "You know that Heero wasn't bound by loyalty to me though?"

"Oh?" Quatre's mind remains centered on the date.

"Yeah, J told him that it was a matter of the need during the moment, but he never did touch anyone but me after that," Duo smiles wistfully. "He still hasn't, you know. I've given him the chance, many of them. I broke up with him once… just to see what he'd do and he just sat there for a while and then he looked up at me and refused. It was quite a shock. No one has ever told me that they refused to break up with me. I've had tantrums and crying fits and pleading and anger, but Heero just looked at me and said, 'I refuse.' It was such a shock, and I just couldn't do it…"

"Do what?"

"I just couldn't leave him."

"You can't leave him!"

[ "Why do you… why do you call out that guy's name all the time when you wake up like this, Duo? Did some- Was there something between the two of you?"

"I said that I don't want to talk about it, Quatre. It isn't going to change tonight."

Timidly he got up and drifts over to the doorway, turning off the light. "But you will… talk about it with me sometime, right Duo?" my name sort of slipped off his tongue and I looked up quickly, but he was gone.

Sighing heavily, I lay back down and stared up at the ceiling. I tossed my pillow up in the air and then started kicking it around the room. "Damn you J!" I seethed, tearing the poor thing to bits in my fury.

Finally exhausted in a foreign manner, I sank to the floor and curled up in a ball to try and keep out the memories and the cold, and succeed in falling asleep.]

  
**Back when we were one**

  
It's really funny. I think Quatre has always been more for our relationship than we have been. The little guy seems to spend more time patching up our life _together_, if you can call it that, than we do. I feel like he should be in this position instead of me, since he can appreciate it so well and he cares about what happens between us so much.

[ I balled up the remains of the pillow and threw them away, heading for the shower, and for once, I went naked, just like he did. Like he was in the room, just then, and he could see me. I smiled just for him and then hurried downstairs… sort of refreshed.

"Sorry about the…" I stopped in shock, having run straight into Rashid.

"Oh, there you are, master Duo, I was just going to get you."

Nodding my lack of thanks, I passed Rashid and entered the kitchen. Quatre was sitting by himself at the table, not a Maguanac in sight, with a tray of eggs and bacon out for the two of us.

"What's all of this, Quatre?" I asked as I sat.

"You haven't been eating enough, Duo."

"Sure I have."

His face went pale again, "You haven't been eating at all, Duo. I know, I've watched you."

"I snack, ok."

"You do not!" Quatre placed the flat of his hand firmly on the table, jarring a little of the full pitcher of orange juice so that it fell over and spilled on the white cloth. Quatre's hand went to his throat again, and I felt suddenly sorry for my façade.

"I'm sorry that I lead you on, Quatre."

"Duo, I realize how you feel about Heero. I may even understand it to some degree, but I realize how you feel. I don't think he's dead, Duo."

"Well if he isn't he'll probably just go running off to that girl again. I can't care about him, Quatre!" I began to eat, and Quatre sipped his tea. I stared down at the plate miserably.

"Duo, I only wish I could somehow prove to you that he's alive. I…"

"I'm a lost cause anyway, Quatre. You'd be doing both of us a favor if you just stopped hurting yourself over me. I hate seeing you in pain. Besides, it's almost like a sign, buddy," I felt the tears welling up in my throat. I pushed them down, deep so that I wouldn't cry in front of Quatre. I should have been able to, but no. It would cause him more grief, I could tell. "If he's going to blow himself up to get away from me, he can't care for me."

Quatre leaned forward and set his head down on the table dejectedly. "Stop thinking of yourself that way, Duo, please. It causes me more anguish to see you feeling down about this and sorry for your own existence than…"

"I don't want to think mean thoughts about this, Quatre, please."

"You mean a lot to me, Duo!" he snapped. "I care for you, and we've only ever shook hands. Duo, I… I can't see how he could feel nothing for you if he has spent time in close proximity with you. It's impossible."]

  
**But I had to grow**

  
[ "Nothing is impossible Quatre, not for him. I'll say this. If there is anyone who _could_ survive that explosion and that fall, it's him It's my… It's Heero, ok? I'll give you that. But even if he comes back, I'll bet it's for the 'mission' and his duty to end the war, not because of me. If someone has the choice between death and daily…"

"Duo, why are you saying these things? You obviously care about him. Why does it hurt you so much to think of him loving you?"

"Because it wasn't like that, Quatre. I want to believe it. Every time I see him, I believe it, but when he's gone it always catches up to me that it was just sex. In order to love someone… I think you have to give them a part of… a part of your soul," I duck my head away from him, "and I never got a part of anything from him."

Quatre frowned and turned to glare at the wall angrily. 'You stupid son of a… why can't you just see that he does care about you, like you care about him?']

  
I'll always be his. It's sad, but it's true. I'll never stop wanting him.

It's why this has continued so long, I think, as it has.

  
**Ten thousand years I've searched it seems and now****  
**

[ "Our duty and his is different. I couldn't have blown myself up. I couldn't have let him go like that. Not now. Quatre, I need him. I need him to shove me into the mattress tonight with no words and just fuck me stupid. I need him to fall asleep on top of me and keep holding me when I wake up tomorrow. Even if it's only a feeble wish, that he'll hold me, he did it once. I remember he did. And I needed it. It was right after the first time, and I was really sore all day and I wanted to tell him to lay off me, but then he did it again and I was hurt until he…"]

  
**Gotta get to you****  
**

It was always very one-sided, back then. It was about him, and that was all there is to it. Any pleasure I got out of it was incidental, his actions afterwards told me that plainly. I couldn't expect any special treatment, and I didn't.

But I accepted it that way.

And I loved him that way.

But I can't do that anymore. I can't. I can't handle the look but don't touch rules that hang in the air between us every evening as the sun goes down. I can't take not being able to torment him just a little how he torments me.

I can't love him if he keeps me locked out, if he won't let me be with him more than just at night. He says she makes him miserable…

But he never does anything about it.

  
**Won't you tell me how**

  
[ Fate put him in contact with Heero Yuy.

He had never believed in love at first sight, but afterwards he found himself seriously rethinking that belief because the minute he laid eyes on the tousled head of hair and too-pretty face, despite the other boy's disposition, the moment their eyes met something gave Duo this sick feeling in his stomach. What happened then were just the reflexes of his training reacting to the situation. Duo was trained for everything. Seduction, infiltration, thievery, the list went on and on.

Duo was proof of female seduction so much that he hated the sight of women. They, in response, flocked to him like flies to a bug zapper. But the minute that intense glare landed on him, Duo lost it all. He caught a chill, and his heart started beating rapidly. He started blushing, and his sense of self-preservation lit the flare at that point. Feeling like he was dying of some untreatable disease that the other boy had given him with just that look was not healthy. All signs pointed to no and his mind forced his reluctant body to respond. After it all was over, and he was running swiftly away, Duo knew that the stoic boy wasn't dead, not at all; the owner of those deep blue eyes wasn't any deader than he himself was.

A fundamental knowledge just how he instinctively knew of the other boy's survival came to him much as easily as the feeling of how tight his already water-sopping wet pants were growing at the thought of him. Duo hadn't been trained to resist _him_. Boys, certainly, he could defeat every attempt at flattery and coyness anything on the earth threw at him, it was as natural by then as braiding his hair in the mornings, and he remained impassive to the point of boredom because not only was he used to the attention but he knew it was all because of his looks. But all the Japanese boy had to do was look at Duo and he fell apart. Those eyes and their telltale sorrow struck something deep inside the Deathscythe pilot that turned him to silly putty in his hands.]

  
**Call me, call me****  
**

There isn't much else I can do, but leave him.

I've got world class competition, and who am I to go up against _her_?

[ Here I am again, standing in what seems like it's the same place… the same time, but isn't. This is a completely different phone booth, a completely different colony, as a matter of fact.]

  
**Let me know you are there****  
Call me, call me  
**

Just some orphan from L2 that managed to survive, against the odds, fight through the war and wind up so horribly in love with the wrong person that could never love him back…

I wonder how long it will take him when I'm gone to go running to her?

  
**I wanna know you still care****  
**

Will he… will he even care?

  
**Come on now won't you****  
****Ease my mind**

_  
It's sometime… early… and I've already packed the car._

He's lying in bed across the room, blissfully unaware. Now is the time to do it, now is the time to…

He groans and turns over. I start as he wakes up and looks around the room with sleep-fuzzy eyes. "Duo?"

I hurry into the bathroom so that he doesn't see that I'm dressed. "Yeah Heero?" I call from the room in the hall.

"Ah… I thought you were gone, for a minute there."

What is that in his voice?

"Just… going to the bathroom right now."

"Mmm… come back to bed," he says in a throaty voice, I can just picture him stretching languidly across the sheets and waiting for me to appear. "It's cold tonight," his voice is impassive and yet I can hear the spark in it, and can almost see the look in his eyes.

"I'll be… just there…" I say, quickly stripping down. I hate how he can make me do that. I hate that just his suggestion of contact makes me run to him.

It's all one big empty promise, that when I get to him it'll all be better.

It's true, when I am with him, but the minute that he has to go out and do something and I'm stuck here or doing something by myself, the doubt floods my mind. I can't keep this up so much longer.

Finally down to nothing, I fold the clothes on the toilet seat carefully and loosen my hair, heading into the bedroom and scratching my scalp absently. His eyes follow me, watch my figure as I move through the darkness towards him. He makes room for me on the bed, giving up his warm spot as I climb in, and puts his arms around me.

Again, I don't want to leave right now.

**  
Reasons for me to find you****  
**

_ But as soon as he's gone I'll be itching to get out. He nuzzles my neck and positions himself close to me, drawing the blankets up over us. I stare out the window, just so that I can look at something other than his bittersweet countenance, just so I can focus on something else other than just him. It's so easy to just focus on him, to let the world slip away to the sidelines and fall into being with him._

His eyes, his quickness… the look he gets when he's made up his mind about something… I can't get over it.

  
**Peace of mind****  
**

And really, that's the sadness of it.

Even though I'm going to go, walk out on Heero, I'm never going to leave him. I'm always going to love him, always going to imagine doing the things I'm doing with him there by my side. I'll always get sad on Valentine's Day and Christmas and Thanksgiving, when everyone else is going about their own business with their family and their loved ones.

It even happens now…

I can hardly stand to go to the grocery store and see mothers or wives and their children or with their husbands trailing behind them as they go about their business. One or the other of us goes to the store, we've got too much to do to do it together.

And that's what I want… I want to do things with him, things that don't involve being naked in any way, and don't involve either of us being aroused or anything like that.

**Ease my mind****  
Reasons for me to find you  
**

[ "Duo?" Trowa asks as the two of them drive out to the house.

Some inane music plays on the radio and Duo pretends he doesn't hear the green eyed young man for a while. Trowa repeats his query. "Duo."

"Yes, Trowa?"

"You seem upset about something, do you… want to talk about it?"

Duo ignores the question. _No, Trowa, I don't want to talk about it, not with you… anyway._]

**Peace of mind****  
**

I broke up with him once before. It was a rather humorous sight because apparently he didn't consider that the two of us were 'going out' in a manner that could be broken up.

I proved him wrong, I think, but…

[ "What's all this, Duo?" Heero asked as he entered the small bedroom of the dormitory suite.

Zipping the last of his bags, Duo turned and smiled at him. "Nothing much."

"You're packed," the Japanese pilot's eyes narrowed. "What's going on, is it a mission?"

"No, it is not," Duo replied, "And for your information, my missions are _my_ business."

Heero shrugged off that and asked, "So what _is_ going on if you haven't received a mission?"

"I've decided that I'm leaving."

"To where?" Heero responded, folding his arms on his chest.

"I haven't decided yet."

"When are you coming back?" the Wing pilot asked further.

"Coming back? Coming back to what?"

"To…" Heero paused for a long while at the confrontation in that sentence. "To…to me," he finished quickly.

"I'm not."

No response came from the other young man in the room and Duo looked down at his bag as he concluded his response. "I'm leaving you, Heero… I'm breaking up with you."

"Excuse me?" Heero responded, shock and incredulousness apparent in his tone. "You're _breaking up_ with me?"

Duo nodded, lifting the bag to his shoulder and turning to head for the door. "You got anything to say about it?" Duo replied, pausing briefly to look at his 'lover' from the corner of his eye.

"So you have no where else to go, no mission to go on, and you're just packing up and walking out on me?" Heero asked, voice low.

"Pretty much."

"I refuse."]

**Reasons for living my life****  
**

We got into a fight about that. It was really painful in the end because after he body slammed me for the second time I couldn't hold back and I kissed him. The floor is nowhere near the most comfortable place to have sex in the entire world. I vouch for that and haven't ever had sex on a floor since. It made me hesitate, when he said that.

_ "I refuse."_

As though there were some reason for him **to** refuse. The same thing when he finally admitted he was wondering when I would return _to him._ All the little things that give me hope that one day he _will _say the words to me that I want to hear.

But then there was also the possessive growl in his voice after we lay panting in a heap on the floor and his arrogant question,  


[ "And you can honestly say you were about to walk away from something like _that_?"]

**  
Ease my mind****  
**

I shoved him away from me, but he didn't do anything but wrap his arms around me and bury his face in my hair. His hands started massaging my back and I fell asleep, exhausted… It pushed back the day that it was going to happen. I've worked too hard and lost too many people who cared enough and were able to _say_ that they cared about me to settle for a life with someone who…

Even though he is great in bed, beautiful to stare at, and can be quite tender when he wants…

… can't even open his mouth and say one fucking word to me in his native language!

I'm not even asking for it in English!  


**Reasons for me to know you****  
**

I don't remember when it went from just casual sex to something more. I don't even really know if _I_ ever considered it casual sex, really. I know he did. For a long time I was nothing to him…

Thinking back it's probably why we fought so much, were always at odds when we were out in public. Couldn't stand the thought of him spending time with someone else when he could just brush me off during the day and then come pounce me at night. It just couldn't work that way for me.

We obviously aren't the same in that respect.

I suppose… it really must have started right after I broke him out of that damn military hospital. I was _soo_ pissed that he decided to fall down the entire way and not open that damn parachute I'd gotten for him. He sniffed and ignored me until I brought his gundam out of the sea.

[ "There, I brought yours up too!"

He finished snapping his leg bone into place and stood up, turning and staring at the lifted figure of his gundam. I figured he was ungrateful and I climbed down, making some wise crack. He was very close as I started to go and he turned to regard me with a roguish look. "I suppose I'll have to find some way to repay you then, huh?" he took a step towards me.

I step backwards, kind of freaked that he had just snapped his own leg bone back into socket, and soon enough we had advanced and retreated until he had me with my back up to the crane housing.

"Yeah, a 'thank you' might be nice," I said, sarcasm becoming defiance as he stared at my face. "H-hey!" I yelped as he leaned forward and pressed a kiss against my lips.

He pulled back after a moment and looked at me quizzically.

"And if I don't swing that way?" I demanded.

"Don't worry," he said, turning and going to where they were already moving his gundam into the shop hangar with mine, "you will," he called over his shoulder.]  
  
**What can I do****  
**

[ This time, though, I pick up the phone and start to dial.

Not him… never him. I can't.

If I do call him it'll all be over. No…

I can't ever call him, not now, not in a year, not at all. Because I still love him…

So instead, I dial the only person I can think of that might help me…]

**to get me to you****.**

[ "Yeah, Hilde… it's me."]


End file.
